The arguments against same‐sex marriage used by the Christian right and other social conservatives in the US have shifted in character. Drawing upon the work of Stanley Kurtz, they have increasingly suggested that same‐sex marriage will necessarily lead to the legal recognition of polygamous and polyamorous relationships. From this perspective, the Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) had, by expanding notions of ‘sexual liberty’, paved the way for the legalisation and recognition of all consenting adult relationships. The article suggests that the Christian right's increased use of consequentialist arguments rather than claims structured around biblical authority or opposition to homosexuality per se is a form of adaptation to long‐term shifts in the character of US popular attitudes.
This article considers the development of the Tea Party movement, the character of its thinking and the nature of the interests and constituencies to which it is tied. The article suggests that despite the importance of ideas and interests, and the process of interaction between them, the movement has also been shaped and energised by institutional arrangements. In particular, it argues that there are significant numbers of independent or ‘detached’ conservatives and that the institutional architecture draws them towards political engagement but at the same time imposes constraints. The political friction that this creates has contributed to the anger that has characterised the movement. While the Tea Party movement may, as such, have only an ephemeral existence, independent conservatives are likely to remain a significant and potent constituency and will, within the institutional structures that define the American political process, give rise to other movements and protests.
This chapter discusses the life and work of Patrick J. Buchanan, who served in three US administrations before making quixotic bids for the US presidency. He was the principal standard-bearer for paleoconservatism, and he popularized a form of politics structured around the white working-class that anticipated the 2016 Trump campaign. Buchanan’s campaigns challenged long-established elites and stressed faith in an American nation based upon a distinct white, northern European heritage. Seen thus, the nation has primacy over the market and is based upon a shared ethnicity rather than on universal principles. This starting point led Buchanan toward the white identitarianism that underpinned The Death of the West in which he contended that the nation was threatened by mass nonwhite immigration. Nonetheless, Buchanan’s efforts to popularize paleoconservative claims were out of step with political time. It took Trump’s campaign to bring the ideas associated with paleoconservatism to the forefront of politics.
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